Selecting Metrics
Your Critical Thinking assignment (see below the description) this week asks you to select metrics for project management purposes of either a home renovation or software upgrade project.
Discuss:
- what purpose should be served by your choices,
- what units of measure you will use,
- how you will choose among financial, success-based, project-based, and project management process metrics.
Discuss which are most appropriate for the case: quantitative, practical, directional, actionable, financial, milestones, or success metrics and why.
Chapter 3 in Project management metrics, KPIs, and dashboards: A guide to measuring and monitoring project performance
Presentation for Chapter 3 from Project management metrics, KPIs, and dashboards
Part 2 Sections 5.6, 5.7 and 5.10 in the PMBOK Guide
Ibraigheeth, M., & Fadzli, S. A. (2019). Core factors for software projects success. JOIV: International Journal on Informatics Visualization, 3(1), 69-74. http://dx.doi.org/10.30630/joiv.3.1.217
Pacagnella, A. C., da Silva, S. L., Pacifico, O., de Arruda Ignacio, P. S., & da Silva, A. L. (2019). Critical success factors for project manufacturing environments. Project Management Journal, 50(2), 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1177/8756972819827670
Kerzner, H. R. (2017). Project management metrics, KPIs, and dashboards: A guide to measuring and monitoring project performance (3rd ed.). John Wiley & Sons.
Project Management Institute. (2017). A guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK Guide) (6th ed.). Project Management Institute, Inc.
Critical thinking assignment
Selecting Metrics for a Home Renovation Project
Since metrics keep stakeholders in tune to the health of a project, metrics must be a clear and truthful representation of project status. Consider this scenario.
You are the project manager of a company that does home remodeling and you have just been given a major remodeling project which will update the electrical and heat and air systems, kitchen, and the single bathroom of a house built in 1930. Your project also adds another bedroom with a master suite. The client has authorized a budget of $95,000 and wants the house ready for Thanksgiving, which is six months away.
Your general contractor (GC) has called you in to discuss the project and asks you to put together a set of metrics that will communicate the project status to her, to the homeowners, the building trade groups, and any other stakeholders. Your GC has asked to meet again in three days with your recommendation which you must be able to defend.
Prepare your metrics of project health and be ready to defend the following:
- how many metrics you will use and why that is the “right” number,
- what the metrics are that you have chosen and why,
- explain that you will use both quantitative and qualitative metrics what they are and why,
- explain how and when you’ll get the data,
- what metrics will allow you to find mistakes early enough in the project for correction, and,
- explain which metrics will improve client satisfaction.
Remember that metrics must have a purpose, have a baseline and target, a way to measure, a way to appropriately interpret them and a reporting structure. Be ready to defend your choices relative to those things too. You will present your ideas in a formal paper for the purposes of this class.
